I've had a problem that i've had to deal with the past couple of weeks, but i'll explain my situation first

I am the head coach of the JV program here at VT, I also play when we play against the prep schools...at the beginning of the year the leader of the JV program decided to keep 25 guys on the roster, some of which really have no business playing college ball, but also some of those are really good friends of mine

about a month into the season the other players went to the leader and asked for a change and asked if i could be the coach...so he gave full control to me and i allowed the kids who were pretty bad to play spot minutes and practice with us but not much else

we've turned the program around and we're undefeated in conference play with the conference tournament coming up, i sent out an email saying that we were gonna have to make cuts for the conference tourney b/c there was no way that i could bring 25 guys to a tournament and let them all play...then i gave my reasons for cutting the players i did, and i had to cut a lot of my friends who just weren't good enough

so here's my question, the players who were cut have become pretty upset about the whole ordeal and complained to the original leader and he and i had a long discussion but ultimately he decided to step down and handed everything over...i want to bring those back in as a group but i cant for the life of me figure out how to get them involved without jeopardizing our chances on the basketball court...so any suggestions (serious ones) would be helpful

thanks

Drew